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Teen driver ejected after stolen SUV lands on house

An SUV landed on top of a home in the 2400 block of Maxwell Drive in southwest Atlanta, police said. JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM

Story Highlights

A teen lost control of a stolen SUV. The vehicle landed on top of a home in southwest Atlanta, police said.

The SUV went airborne, tearing down tree limbs, mailboxes and power lines.

The teen driver was in grave condition at an area hospital.

A teen was ejected from a stolen SUV early Tuesday after he lost control of the vehicle and landed on a home in southwest Atlanta, police said.

The teen was driving a Dodge Journey southbound on Maxwell Drive at a high rate of speed when he lost control, Atlanta police Lt. Dorian Graham said.

According to police, the vehicle went airborne, tearing down tree limbs, mailboxes and power lines.

Police said Tuesday afternoon that the teen is in grave condition at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Graham said he'd never seen anything like it.

“It’s weird,” he said.

APD Lt. D.F. Graham describes the scene where a car crashed into house. Video by John Spink / AJC

The car’s owner, Ebony Thomas-Knight, learned of the crash just after it happened.

“My friend called and said, ‘Is that your car on the roof?’ ” Thomas-Knight told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday afternoon.

In town for business from New Jersey, she said the car was stolen Sunday night in southwest Atlanta, about five miles from where the crash happened.

After several calls to police, she finally succeeded in getting a report filed. She was driving back to New Jersey on Tuesday in a rental car.

“This has been very, very weird for me,” she said.

Though the SUV clipped or damaged multiple homes before coming to rest on top of a residence in the 2400 block of Maxwell Drive, the teen driver was the only person injured. The home’s renter was assessing the damage, according to Channel 2 Action News.

Johnathan Williams lives in one of the affected homes. The SUV struck his fence. About 6:45 a.m., he was sitting in his living room, about to take his 10-year-old daughter to school.

“Something told me to wait for a second,” Williams told The AJC. “And I waited, and that’s when I heard everything, and I could see the flashing from where he hit the power line. The transformer exploded.”

He said he ran to see if the driver was OK and saw the teen lying on the ground unconscious.